Dawn Of The Idea Czar

From BusinessWeek Online

"Billy Edwards' colleagues at Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD ) have called him their utility infielder. AMD's human resources chief Kevin Lyman calls him the chipmaker's agent provocateur. Officially, though, Edwards is called AMD's chief innovation officer, a newly created role for this senior vice-president.

Although Edwards, 50, has a PhD in materials science engineering and has worked around semiconductors for much of his career, he has also headed up strategy at the Sunnyvale (Calif.) company, run a startup, and worked as a consultant for The Boston Consulting Group. So when AMD formalized a role that would lead its innovation effort last September (or, as Lyman describes it, "put an 'X' on the back of someone to consciously drive it"), Edwards' diverse experience, gregarious personality, and penchant for disrupting traditional ways of thinking fit the bill. "A chief innovation officer needs to be this blend of marketer, technologist, strategist, and business person," says Lyman."

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